The USA under a fascist government
The lengths the US government goes to, to try and convince its subjects that they are under threat from dark forces is truly incredible:
My father, a Palestinian professor named Sami Al-Arian, was arrested over four years ago on trumped-up terrorism charges and submitted to a prosecution over the course of six months that bordered on the farcical. Though he was ultimately acquitted by a jury of the most serious charges against him, the Bush administration has prolonged his imprisonment indefinitely. My father now languishes in a Virginia jail, another victim of the demagogic politics of the so-called war on terror.Many have wondered why my father would be targeted so vigorously, especially after the government lost a case that cost $50 million…
...When my father’s trial finally began in June 2005, the government presented 71 witnesses, including nearly two dozen from Israel, paraded before the jury for sheer emotional effect. Four hundred phone calls out of half a million the government recorded during a decade of relentless, indiscriminate surveillance of my family were also presented. The prosecutors acted out the phone calls on the 13th floor of a courtroom in downtown Tampa, giving new meaning to the phrase political theater…
I spent some time in the 1980’s regreting that I hasn’t tried to get a job in the USA - I worked on a project which involved regular trips to different parts of the country – including both US coasts, and several cities in the middle of the country, and was very impressed with both the spectacular landscapes and the friendly American people. We know several Brits who did move to the USA and took American citizenship, but now I am really glad we never got our act together. As Naomi Wolf pointed out in the Guardian a couple of days ago, they are already well down the road to having a fascist government.